Soul of the Void
by Unravelling
Summary: Sacrifice. The word was imprinted into his very being. It danced on his tongue, rushed through his veins and burned in the depths of his soul. On that fateful day atop Fort Drakon, Aedan Cousland embraced his death. Instead, something that never should've existed is brought into a world woefully unprepared and an ancient threat that has slumbered for millennia stirs in its wake.


**Prologue - Terminus**

As he stood there at the end, amidst blood and fire and the screams of a dying god, his thoughts turned inexplicably to the beginning; to the monumental betrayal that had stolen his family and set him down this path.

He saw again, as he did every night, the visions of a mother and a son, bodies broken as still-warm blood spilt across moonlit stones. Of his dying father, his weeping mother, both determined to stare treachery in the eye to buy their _pup_ a chance to live.

He thought of his ever-vibrant brother, lost to the Korcari, forever unknowing of the fate that had befallen their House.

For Aedan Cousland, whose ears still rang with the echoes of Rendon Howe's last desperate screams, there was nothing left but the oath and the blade and the emptiness that festered within.

A deep breath was drawn – fraught with the taste of smoke and death – as his gaze roamed over a landscape of chaos – drinking in every detail, every _facet_ – because _this_ was one of those moments a man would remember as the last dregs of life faded from his eyes.

The kind of moment that would be remembered for Ages to come.

The death of the last Cousland would etch the name of their line in the annals of Thedas forever.

_My death._

The thought settled like a stone in his gut and at the same time like a mantle about his shoulders. He was, in that moment, a man defined by the paradox within.

He laughed, a broken sound rattled into the stark wind and faded into the buzz of chaos.

A firm voice sounded from behind.

"May you walk forever after at the Maker's side, Aedan."

He turned to the man who'd stood at his side since the beginning, on that dark day at Ostagar.

His friend, his 'brother'.

His _king_.

Aedan nodded, once; a curt, grim acknowledgement, marred by the slightest twitch of his lips.

"And may He guide your hand in the days to come…Alistair."

Then he turned, pulled on his helmet, and walked away.

As he stepped closer and closer to that evermore tangible end, he found his thoughts drifting again.

He wondered how Alistair would speak of this _war_ on the morrow to a wounded kingdom, united in victory.

He wondered what the histories would say of this day; what stories would remain, scrawled into weathered vellum, an age from now.

And he wondered if a thousand years on, when the blights were all but myth, would children tussle before their wargames for the right to be the last Cousland atop Fort Drakon; as he had, once, to be Carinas at the Silent Plains.

The thought was bittersweet, the last faint musings of a dreamer boy buried in the flesh of a bitter man.

And then the world fell away till naught remained but the dragon and the blade in his fist.

Watched by unwavering amber eyes, he took a step, then another, muscles loose but ready to move at the slightest twit-

Like a snake, the coiled neck snapped forward, a great, lunging flail of bone, scale and teeth. He shifted his weight, tilted his shield _just so_ and the fanged maw of the beast glanced over tempered silverite, crashing past him to halt amidst crumbling stone.

For a single beat, all stood still, then he gripped the worn hilt with both hands – one steady and firm, the other still trembling – and stepped forward, driving the shimmering blade home. As it screamed, flailing in agony, he ripped the buried edge across and out in a spray of dark blood and broken scales, leaving a long gaping wound that stretched along its bared violet neck, stained in deep crimson.

The dragon crumpled, like a puppet with its strings cut, but _still_ it clung to life – the flaring nostrils, flickering eyelids and the tell-tale whistle told him that much.

Otherworldly though it might've been, the unmistakeable glint of defeat shone bright in those tainted golden orbs as it shifted helplessly before him, a far cry from the terrifying monstrosity that had reaped through a field of steel and flesh.

And yet, gazing upon this ancient foe – broken and cast down at his feet – he felt strangely subdued.

No heady rush of joy surged through him, no savage grin of victory twisted his lips; instead, his thoughts turned again to his dead family – of settled scores and debts repaid – and to the long sought peace that would finally come, here at the end.

He smiled; a reticent quirk of the mouth that no one would ever see.

Then Aedan of House Cousland, last of his line, raised the ancient blade of Highever – radiant and keen as the day it was forged-

And the world vanished in a blinding, emerald flash.

Jean Colbert was a wary man, still beholden to the instincts born in a time long past. To most of his youthful charges, he may have appeared unchangingly dull – dutifully watching over the summoning ceremony in the same studious stance he had maintained since dawn broke over the horizon – but a particularly perceptive observer might have said that he looked ready for a fight, as the last of the participants stepped forward.

Nobody would've questioned him, had they even noticed it; a glance at the array and who stood chanting before it would've likely sent most of his colleagues running for the hills, but Colbert preferred to keep his wariness as subtle as possible.

After all, Louise de la Vallière was a model student who'd dedicated countless hours towards _understanding_ over simply _doing_. His thoughts drifted to memories of her first year, when she had broached an idea with him regarding the non-violent applications of fire magic. He had smiled brightly at her, deeply impressed, and encouraged her to privately explore the idea in practice. That had been before he'd understood the severity of her unique 'problem'; at the time he'd only been confused at the crestfallen look that had spilled across her face as she turned on her heel and slunk off.

Now, as he watched over her at this critical juncture in her life as a mage and as a noble, Colbert could only pray to the Founder that the girl was allowed to find some measure of magical success; it would be a _waste_, after all, for a daughter of the Heavy Wind to pass into obscurity like _this_.

Still – the soldier within whispered – he had not survived half a lifetime's service on hope _or_ prayer, and so Colbert found himself standing there – poised to move – muttering the words of the quickest barrier spell he knew as the girl approached the finale of the incantation.

The explosion that punctuated the Vallière scion's last shouted word was equal parts unwelcome and unsurprising. The rumbling echoes of its discharge rang in his ears and the roiling cloud of dust shrouded the greater part of the courtyard, forcing him to narrow his eyes to see the vague shapes that were his students brushing themselves off.

His gaze slid around until it settled on a lonely crumpled shape and he strode briskly to her side, a weary sigh escaping as the jeering taunts began on cue, like clockwork.

It was as he bent to a crouch by her side, reaching out to grasp her shoulder that it hit him.

Like a solid wall, the stench of blood and smoke and death rolled over him, igniting flashing images of leaping fire and echoing screams that had haunted him for two long decades. A tangible shiver of dread crept down his spine, and Colbert felt the tell-tale moisture forming on his palms that heralded a primal sensation he'd since grown unfamiliar with in his complacent semi-retirement; _fear_.

The soldier inside - buried but never _truly_ dead - snapped to life and he cleared his mind, extended his will and found an ocean of anguish – of pain and anger and hate, amalgamated in a maelstrom of power that raged from somewhere in the vicinity of the array.

He jerked away, flinching at the inherent sense of wrongness that screamed silently through the air, just in time to hear the very real sound of earth shifting beneath the weight of something _massive_. In a flash, he'd stepped in front of Louise, a brief glance turned on her revealing a bloodless look of fear, and he realised that even _she_ – untrained and unblooded as she was – could feel it.

Whatever_ it _was.

The mocking taunts continued in the distance but uncharacteristically, Louise ignored them, wide eyes fixed intently ahead as the beginnings of a nervous whimper slipped from trembling lips.

Another sound of wet grass and shifting earth drew his gaze back to the fore and he hushed the girl with a quiet grunt. It would be uncommonly bad luck for her first magical success to be the summoning of a dangerous familiar – it was meant to be impossible, after all - but the smell and the sounds and that _aura_ had set his nerves alight, and his body had settled into the loose tension that always came before a fight.

Following the line of Louise's stare, he blinked, squinting into the dust where a large, vague shadow faded in and out of focus some fifteen yards ahead and he was just murmuring the first words of a minor wind spell when an unholy shriek rent the air.

Molten fire lanced through his head but unlike his student – who clapped hands to ears and shut her eyes against the pain – Colbert never lowered his guard, only allowing himself the barest wince, his staff levelled and ever-ready as the incantation rolled unerringly from his tongue.

When the conjured breeze swept through the courtyard, he was prepared for anything.

Or so he'd believed.

For that first long moment, he – and every other being in the vicinity, human or familiar – could only stare in frozen silence at the massive dragon coiled not twenty paces away, an ingrained reaction to the sudden presence of a creature at the peak of the food chain – an apex predator.

A frenzied sort of murmuring broke out amongst the crowd, of awe and astonishment. Louise, caught between desperate joy and uncertain disbelief, moved to step past him and closer to the creature she undoubtedly believed to be her rightful familiar.

Colbert barred her way with an outstretched arm and ignored her perplexed questions, never taking his gaze from the beast.

It was a vicious thing, he thought, its body wrought from deep purple scale and wreathed in long spines that seemed to leap at random from a hideously contorted hide – a far cry from Tabitha's sleeker, smoother and distinctly smaller familiar. A cursory scan noted the ripped membrane of its wings before settling on the myriad projectiles buried in its heaving flanks – arrows, spears and the unmistakeable form of the Germanic _ballistae_.

He was contemplating the implications of this when a second impossible anomaly strode, almost casually, into view.

The armoured figure of stormy silver and grey seemed to simply _appear_, materialising from the shadow of crumpled wings to stand by the beast's monstrous jaws, sword and shield in hand as unfathomable eyes stared down from the shadowed depths of a stern helm. Colbert was close enough to see the flicker of something akin to familiarity in the deep, amber orbs of the dragon as its gaze slid weakly up and he stepped forward, a call dancing on the edge of his tongu-

**EGO SUM URTHEMIEL**

The deafening intonation was silent to his ears, echoing instead in the very core of his mind, and Colbert stumbled mid-stride, eyes snapping to the unmoving snout of the beast – as if to confirm the impossible. The squeak of elated surprise that escaped the girl at his side, and the furious whispering that erupted from behind, pushed it beyond doubt and yet he could only continue to stare – dumbfounded – as the unintelligible words of a dragon resounded through his very thoughts.

The helmet tilted to one side, an almost innocent gesture of curiosity, and Colbert could only think that it was an absurdly placid reaction in the presence of a thought-speaking dragon. He was still watching the unlikely pair, struck by the unshakeable sense of familiarity with which they seemed to regard each other, when that thunderous voice sounded again in his mind.

**EGO SUM SEMPITERNUS**

And as if that second echoing rumble had been the trigger, the helm was ripped away with a sudden bark of harsh laughter to reveal young man, far younger than Colbert had expected.

A faint murmur of words passed from man to beast, a fluttering of the lips that the professor could barely make out as the man gazed down at the beast, an oddly serene smile pulling at pale features.

And then, without any further warning, as two score pairs of astonished eyes watched on intently, the sword was raised high – shining in the mid-morning sun. A desperate voice screamed from his right – _"NO!"_ – but by the time Louise de la Vallière had taken a single step forward, that shining blade was already buried deep in the great horned skull of the dragon.

In the moment of silence that followed, Louise fell to her knees, a broken, discordant wail that scratched at his heart seeping from quivering lips. Jean Colbert turned – to comfort, to reason, to reassure-

And the world erupted in a torrent of brilliant golden light, a sudden, intense storm of power that drowned all else.


End file.
